“I was pleased with the intensity and energy that we showed tonight,” Mainieri said. “We had four freshmen in the lineup tonight, and I thought they did a great job. We got a glimpse at the future with some of our young players on the field.”

The Tigers took an early 1-0 lead when designated hitter LeMahieu homered to lead off the LSU second inning. It was LeMahieu’s third homer of the season.

Two batters later, Mahtook lined a two-run homer over the left field wall to increase the LSU lead to 3-0. It was Mahtook’s first collegiate home run.

Harvard cut the lead to 3-2 in the third when center fielder Dillon O’Neill lined a two-run single up the middle.

In the fourth, Mahtook belted his second two-run homer of the game off Harvard starter Brent Suter to put LSU up 5-2. Mahtook finished 2-for-4 with four RBI.

Suter (2-2) was charged with the loss, as he allowed five runs on seven hit and struck out six in 3.2 innings of work.

The Tigers continued the scoring the seventh inning when catcher Micah Gibbs blasted a double over O’Neill’s head in center to score Schimpf, who doubled right before Gibbs.

The next batter, LeMahieu singled up the middle to score Schimpf and put LSU up 7-2.

Later in the inning, Chris McGhee pinch ran for LeMahieu and scored along with Pontiff on an error by Harvard shortstop Sean O’Hara to make the score 9-2, LSU.

Grant Dozar, who reached first on the error, scored when shortstop Austin Nola singled to extend the Tiger lead to 10-2, capping a five-run seventh inning for LSU.

The LSU bullpen had another exceptional performance as relievers Ben Alsup and Randy Ziegler combined to allow no runs and only one hit in two innings of relief.